“Whoever wins the White House next week will take office with no shortage of challenges,” Wall Street Journalit’s Greg IP writing this morning, “but at least one immense asset: an economy that shames its peers”:

With another strong performance in the third quarter, the United States grew 2.7% over the past year. It is outpacing all other major developed economies, not to mention its own historic growth rate. More impressive than the growth rate is its quality. This growth does not result solely from the depletion of limited reserves of labor and other resources, which could fuel inflation. Instead, it was about making individuals and businesses more productive.

A year from now, when Donald Trump takes his millionth victory lap after single-handedly saving the economy from ruin, it will be a fun moment to remember. Happy Thursday.

by Andrew Egger

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did something remarkable this week: he made his brain worm contagious.

Last night, Howard Lutnick, co-chair of the Trump transition team, was interviewed on CNN. Host Kaitlan Collins asked him about RFK Jr.’s explosive claim, made during a video call with supporters this week, that Donald Trump promised him he would “control” America’s public health agencies.

That’s the kind of question any Mendoza line political hacker might dodge in their sleep. You know: These conversations are ongoing, we have not made any decisions regarding personnel, and so on. This would have been especially easy since RFK Jr. got on his skis on this very subject in 2016, boasting that Trump was going to make him president of a vaccine safety commission this never came to fruition.

Lutnick, however, was not interested in dodging. “So I spent two and a half hours this week with Bobby Kennedy Jr., and it was the most amazing thing,” he exclaimed. It turned out that Bobby had left it In on some things:

What he explained was that when he was born we had three vaccines and autism was one case in 10,000. Today a baby is born with 76 vaccines because in 1986 they waived product liability for vaccines. And here’s the best part. They started paying people at the NIH, right? They give them part of the money for the vaccine manufacturers. . . So what happened now? Autism is one in 34.

To be clear: the question of whether there is a link between childhood vaccines and autism has been exhaustively studied; none were found. The idea of ​​putting a crackpot conspirator in charge of America’s federal health agencies is almost too dark to contemplate.

But what’s most fascinating about this particular interview is Lutnick’s childlike, awestruck tone; the atmosphere of: Kaitlan, you’re not going to believe this. We learn all the most NOTICED new things from RFK.

Keep in mind that Lutnick is supposed to be one of the adults in the room.

Yesterday I wrote an article for the site examining the curious breakdown in message discipline surrounding the Trump campaign this week. RFK Jr.’s boastful comments about his upcoming cabinet appointment were a big part of that. But there was also Elon Musk, who made inexplicably bold predictions about serious economic turmoil in the early months of Trump’s second term. And House Speaker Mike Johnson, who opened a new health policy debate this week by commenting to donors that Trump planned to “go big” with “massive reform” of the structure of Obamacare.

Why all these errors over time, when Team Trump spent the entire election season striving to remain vague on so many key policy issues? Lutnick’s interview provides a clue. It’s a striking image of a campaign team that has become hopelessly high on its own supply. Or, you know, it could just be this brain worm.

by William Kristol

Charlie Kirk is upset.

Of course, Kirk is often upset. He’s a minor MAGA celebrity, and a prerequisite for being a MAGA celebrity is that you’re angry at America today. And a key part of your job is to make other Americans angry — more than they have any real reason to be — about the country in which they live.

What makes Charlie particularly unhappy now? That women can lie to their husbands – for their own good. (Can you believe it? Who ever heard of such a thing!?)

What are they lying about? Their vote.

Charlie is deeply worried: he said yesterday in an interview with Megyn Kelly, that women can “undermine their husbands” by letting them believe that they are with them, side by side, sitting comfortably on the Trump train. But then, in the dark and dangerous secrecy of the voting booth, some of these women might vote for Kamala Harris, even if the husband “works hard to make sure she can have a good life.”

Treason! Subversion! Feminine tricks! The poor husbands of America, the wool over their eyes! It’s terrible.

Charlie seems to have been particularly provoked by an excellent ad from the organization Vote Common Good, featuring Julia Roberts. A buffoonish husband, who apparently just voted, says to his wife: “Your turn, darling. » When the woman enters the voting booth, the voiceover reminds us that this is a place where she always has the right to choose, that women can vote for whoever they want and that no one else needs to. know it.

The woman votes for Harris. Then the husband can’t help but ask in a slightly creepy and typically masculine way: “Did you make the right choice?” The woman replies, “Of course, honey.”

It turns out that some people other than Kirk are outraged by this ad. Some on the left are upset that the ad seems to accept that in today’s America some women would feel pressured to lie about their vote. But given the real family structures that exist in America today, it is reasonable that some women would choose to lie – or at least not be entirely honest – about their vote, in order to preserve the peace of home.

Perhaps this advertising will no longer be necessary in twenty years. By then, perhaps most Americans will understand that whining is no substitute for thinking, nor is yelling to persuade. But this is a longer term program.

For now, it’s a good announcement. I hope a number of women will follow her advice. (And some men too, who don’t want to or can’t afford to be completely frank with their loved ones, their neighbors or their colleagues.) The message is solid: Do the right thing, even if you choose not to announce it from the rooftops. The secret ballot exists for a reason.

Your husband may think it’s good, as Donald Trump said yesterday in Wisconsin, that Trump is “protecting” the women of this country “whether they like it or not.” But here in America, in 2024, women have the right to think for themselves and form their own opinions about their interests and those of the country.

They will exercise this right on Tuesday. Whether Trump likes it or not – or, in some cases, their Trumpy husbands.

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SERENITY NOW: A New York Times title cringe: “Inflation has basically returned to normal. Why do voters still feel depressed? »

“The persistent pessimism is also a kind of enigma,” said the Times reports. “The labor market is growing, although more slowly, overall growth is healthy and even inflation is more or less back to normal. New data, released on Thursday, is expected to show prices rose slightly by 2.1 percent over the past year. Confidence has recovered as inflation has eased, but it remains well below where it was the last time the economy looked as strong as it does today.”

This one is not rocket science. We’re just going to speculate wildly that the last time the economy looked as strong as it does today, half the country wasn’t told “we’re in the middle of the worst economy in the world.” history” by their sectarian leader. We are not psychics here. But if Trump wins, we expect Republicans’ economic confidence to soar within weeks, for no other reason than to tell them everything is settled.

WHO SHOWS UP EARLY? Trump better hope his… ah…unorthodox The appeal to female voters is bearing fruit. Policy reports this morning, that “women vote early in very large numbers, much more than men”:

Across battlegrounds, there is a 10-point gender gap in early voting so far: Women make up about 55 percent of early votes, while men make up about 45 percent , according to a study. Policy analysis of early voting data in several key states. The implications for next week’s election results are unclear; among registered Republicans, women also vote earlier than men. But the strong female turnout is encouraging for Democratic strategists, who expected that an increase in Republican turnout would translate into greater gender parity among early voters.

Here is an offsetting data point, however: Greg Bluestein of Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes today that “the highest early voting turnout in Georgia is not in Democratic strongholds such as DeKalb County or the hotly contested suburbs surrounding metro Atlanta.” It is in sparsely populated rural counties that Republicans often reign supreme.”

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